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I shudder these days when I see a house with a planting of daffodils or tulips, all precisely lined up like little soldiers on parade. It seems such a waste of bulbs - because all that precision does is call attention to the empty spaces between the plants.
I prefer to go for the glory - to plant in drifts of color and in such a way that the garden looks good from early to late spring. The way to do that is to plant your garden in layers.
Instead of doing the usual thing and ordering a bunch of tulips and a bunch of daffodils and leaving it at that, order some of the so-called minor bulbs, too. Small bulbs such as grape hyacinths (muscari) and Siberian squill (Scilla) cost much less than the larger bulbs, and so you can afford to plant them in quantity. Imagine a carpet of blue muscari and yellow crocuses beneath drifts of yellow daffodils. Or the cool elegance of blue and white scilla and crocuses under pure white tulips.
If you are worrying about having to dig a hundred or so extra holes, stop now. I never dig individual holes for my bulbs. I dig out an area to the required depth of my largest bulbs and simply lay them in the hole in the desired pattern, add some fertilizer and soil amendments such as well composted manure, then refill the hole.
And wait - it gets easier. I plant that hole in layers of bulbs.
The hole that you dig should be shaped a bit like a fat comma - or like a polliwog. If your largest bulbs are tulips, then you place those at the bottom of the hole, spacing them so that you have about 5 bulbs per square foot at the bottom of a hole that is anywhere from 6 to 10 inches deep. When you have arranged these, toss in some amended soil until the tulips are covered to their necks.
Now take daffodils and lay them in the spaces between the tulips. You can get about 5 daffodil bulbs to the square foot, at from 6-8 inches deep. If you have smaller bulbs, then you can probably adjust the spacing to 7 per square foot. Notice that I'm using odd numbers. It's impossible to plant a small even number of bulbs without ending up with a line or a square - odd numbers allows you to achieve a more natural look. Add more soil, so that the tulip bulbs are completely covered, and you can see the necks of the daffs.
If you like, you can add hyacinths at the same spacing as the daffodils. Or you can start right in with the smaller bulbs.
Crocuses, scilla, grape hyacinths, small frittillaria and alliums and snowdrops all like to be planted anywhere from 3-4 inches deep. I would choose one of these in a solid color and make that the next layer in your hole. You can get anywhere from 15 to 20 of these smaller bulbs into a square foot - so you will have a nice carpet of color from them.
Finally, fill your hole in with more amended soil and move on to your next fat comma shaped hole. In this hole you will do exactly the same as before, but now you might try using the same bulbs in a different color.
Don't worry about the fact that a crocus bulb is sitting on top of a tulip. Somehow they all manage to sort themselves out in the growing process. But what you have now accomplished is beautiful drifts of color that will look as natural as though they had been planted by Ma Nature, in drifts that will have a big visual impact. And you've only dug a few holes - instead of a few hundred - in order to achieve a garden that should make the cars that drive by slow down and back up for another look.
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